Kim Jong Ill suits are all the rage here. Too bad they don't come in my size. Actually, not, all the girls dress the same here, but it's pretty cute.

The food is delicious and cheap. I get a hankering for a burger every now and again though, but there is a Burger King a few blocks from my school, so that's easily taken care of.

Stories:

Yesterday one of my students said the worst vacation she had ever taken was in Thailand because of "all the gays". (As a side note, much like Iran, there are no gay men in Korea--but I have been to a gay bar here but my students don' t need to know that). That same day a student told me she heard that everyone in the US is racist against Asians.

I asked a class to think of things that are scary to make a list on the board. One of the women in the class said "Homeless people!". When I asked what was the scariest thing that had ever happened to her (superlatives!) she told a story about crossing a street by her office and making eye contact with a homeless person. He then started to follow her across the street and touched her! The real killer in the story "and he was smiling!" the horror!!!

The subway is packed packed packed when I leave work at night. The people just shove their way into the subway and some are so tiny they just fill every available space, like little packing peanuts that reek of garlic.

Dudes piss anywhere they feel like it after drinking. I was going into the subway on my way to work one morning around 5:30 am and a dude was just standing at the entrance pissing.

If you ever find yourself teaching adults in Korea and you are having trouble getting them to talk talk about alcohol, specifically Soju. They all laugh insanely and then start talking like madmen.

You can drink on the street here. It is pretty rad. Beer is pretty expensive (about $5 or so for a bottle at a bar) and it's not bad but it's not great. You can also get 1,600 ml bottles of beer--40s are for pussies! It's far more enjoyable to sit on the street and drink a cheap beer from a convenience store than to go to a bar and pay a lot to drink.

The subway shuts down at midnight every night. This is a pain in the ass when you're out cavorting, cabs aren't expensive, but the subway is about .90.

I saw an arcade in a subway station, but I haven't been to one. The closest is what I've been doing for internet access, the PC Bang. It is super smokey (even for me the smoker) and a bunch of dudes just come and play games online because their parents yell at them when they play at home.

Thank you for saying that I am rad. Every little bit helps these days. I keep thinking that maybe if I am wearing my sunglasses I might "pass" but then I remember that I've got blonde hair and that theory goes out the window. I've always been a fairly conspicuous person, but being a conspicuous member of a minority group is really a little bit new for this honkey and more than a little tiring sometimes.

i think you are fantastically brave and open-minded and curious to travel so far and learn so much. and to think you were just in lemmings or some bar not too long ago telling me it was time to move back home, and what were you going to do with that scenario? and here you are . . you grows up and you grows up and you grows up

This week I discovered the best sign I have ever seen. It is for a place called "Club Havana" in Gangnam where I work. It's a neon sign that is a monkey wearing a cowboy hat smoking a cigarette and eating a banana. If I could live in that sign I totally would. I finally get paid August 10th and with all the overtime I've been doing it should be a pretty sweet paycheck. Technology will follow.